Fear and Beauty
by Fading-into-night
Summary: Layton Brothers - Mystery Room. He was. He was beautiful. The same grotesque beautiful he saw in murders; head ducked, passion and pleasure written across his face. He was a monster. Takes place during Case 004. Lucy-centric. Major spoilers for cases after 002. Oneshot.


She could feel it, the adrenaline that sparked the air and set it aflame; casting a dead, humid heat in the misty room they were interrogating Careta in; the poor boy, sobbing behind his mask, screaming. But Prof' had let loose his other half, his darker, angrier half, who took great joy in pain and in murder.

"No!" Chico cried over and over, his mask slipping as he tried to cover his ears.

Lucy could see part of his face, stricken with fear, with the terror of a broken heart and of love.

"Prof'!" she cried desperately, moving to partially block her boss from the poor boy. "Stop!"

But he talked on; she could hardly hear what he was saying now. All she could hear was this ringing; all she could hear was her terror. A sickly grin spread across his face, curling at the corners like a Cheshire cat.

His hand pushed through his hair and his voice grew louder, swifter, more demanding, half of his face darkened by shadows, cast by the orange light from the only window in the room. The color on his skin looked so hot, so cold, that when he met her eyes the heat in her chest felt like ice in her stomach and she couldn't tell if he was burning her or freezing her over.

"Stop it!" she repeated, moving further before Chico who was in hysterics over his lover, his fiancé.

Alfendi's eyes shifted over her shoulder, his smile turning into a snarl. "Shut up!" he growled, slender fingers closing around her wrist with great strength as he jerked her out of the way. He sauntered towards the suspect, the murder, the obedient man who'd only done what his vixen wife had demanded. Alfendi slammed his hand on the table and laughed, fingers combing through his hair and further musing it, strands falling into his eyes.

Dazed, Lucy didn't hear what Prof' had said, but whatever it was made Careta cry out, his voice breaking.

"No! No, no, no no no no!" the mask he had bared for sadness, distress, fell to the floor and for the first time, Lucy saw what he had hidden.

His eyes were wide, shoulders raised. His eyes were wet with tears and his mouth was open, nervous words tumbling from his lips in both English and his native tongue. Excuses, explanations, accusations and blames put on demons, on the 'diablo'.

Alfendi laughed.

In the shadow of his silhouette, sprawled across the floor, Lucy stared up at her boss and couldn't help but think that he was-

He was-

Beautiful.

He was the same grotesque beautiful he saw in murders; head ducked, passion and pleasure written across his face. He was a monster. He continued to ramble, his voice rising and dropping octaves while his arms lifted, spreading open in a surreal, almighty stance. His face smoothed into divinity.

His eyes widened in bliss.

Lucy was burning, blood boiling, fear mounting, but on shaky legs, sure heart, she pushed herself up, making her way towards him with steadying steps.

Her breath shuttered into her mouth, the hot air sliding down her throat and sitting in her lungs, so thick she almost drowned in it. Her body was hot. With affection, with memorization, with awe, with anger. She made her way towards him, the few steps feeling more like meters than feet.

Her stomach was weighted with anxiety as she gripped his shoulder, affectively stopping the Prof's angry ramble, saving the boy who was already long lost. She looked into his eyes, still the same green, alight with genius, but flooded with something she couldn't name. Something like vengeance, or love. His lips twitched as his attention turned towards his assistant.

She gripped his shoulder tight and punched him straight across his horrible face.

"And things were just getting interesting," he muttered, glaring up at her from where he had fallen. But whatever he had to say next, whatever vulgarities he had aimed her way, died as blackness and unconsciousness swallowed him, lips still twisted into that ugly, horrible, beautiful smirk.

Later, after Sich and some other people carted Prof' away on Lucy's distressed, thick-voiced call, after they'd taken Chico Cartera away (poor boy, shell shocked, unresponsive, almost comatose), Lucy would find out that Mariana was long gone by the time villagers had gone looking for her. She'd probably planned it from the start. She'd used her fiancé right from the beginning and had probably escaped with the statuette they had found.

Oh, how stupid she had been. Lucy figured, God, no, demons don't exist. But people sure as 'ell did. And if demons at all lived on this planet, they lived in people.

And she lived with it every day. She sat in an office with it. She trusted it. Confided in it. She worked for the diablo.

And she wanted to go down and see him.

She sat as his desk, breathing in his smell and eying the papers scattered across his desk, the room. He always had old documents, new, stuffed into his pockets, desk drawers, and cabinets.

She wanted to go down and see him.

She felt a tug at her limbs, stitching into her skin like he was pulling her. Pulling her like Cartera had pulled the corpse. But the string was red instead of clear fishing line.

She swallowed thickly, throat rolling over the lump that sat there.

She leaned back and turned her face towards the ceiling, covering her eyes and opening her mouth, pretending she could see no evil.

Even if she saw it every day.

And evil was beautiful.

* * *

Spoilers for Case. 004! It has, so far, been my favorite, if you neglect the banter between the cocky actor in Case. 003, where he asked if Prof' and Ms. Lucy were…

An item.

Oh yes I love them.


End file.
